Speaker 1: On April twenty nine, two thousand seven, two massed gunmen
Speaker 1: entered a trailer home occupied by a group of undocumented
Speaker 1: workers in Slidel, Louisiana, and demanded their cash. When Jose
Speaker 1: Carlos Martinez Carpio didn't comply, he was fatally shot and
Speaker 1: the gunman fled in a Chevy Tahoe. The witnesses described
Speaker 1: the gunman as two black men around five eight to
Speaker 1: five ten with no tattoos. Two men were reported disposing
Speaker 1: of a gun outside of a Chevy Tahoe, and testing
Speaker 1: confirmed that that gun was the murder weapon. The investigation
Speaker 1: led to seventeen year old Glen Carter, who confessed to
Speaker 1: the crime and exchanged for leniency, saying that his accomplice
Speaker 1: was a guy named E. Police approached one of Carter's
Speaker 1: known associates, Edred Cooper, who offered a trade information about
Speaker 1: two more assailants for leniency. But in the crime involving
Speaker 1: only two assailants, wouldn't such lies just be ignored, especially
Speaker 1: when those lies change repeatedly to adapt a new evidence.
Speaker 1: When two different sets of facts were needed to convict
Speaker 1: the actual purpose and these other two guys, a judge
Speaker 1: would never let that slide right, you would think, but
Speaker 1: this is wrongful conviction. Welcome back to wrongful conviction. Today
Speaker 1: we're headed to the incarceration capital of the most incarcerated
Speaker 1: nation in the world, and of course I'm talking about Louisiana.
Speaker 1: And today's case evolves four men convicted separately for the
Speaker 1: same crime. Two are admittedly guilty, while the other two
Speaker 1: were wrongfully convicted, and each conviction involved a slightly or
Speaker 1: entirely different set of quote unquote facts. And we hope
Speaker 1: for justice to be served for both of the wrongly
Speaker 1: convicted men. One of them is with us today, Jase Washington,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. All yeah, we
Speaker 1: appreciate it. And with him his peers advocate. Is he
Speaker 1: a free a who was alerted to this insane in
Speaker 1: justice as well during COVID taking a break from law
Speaker 1: school writing articles about the criminal legal system. Now, she
Speaker 1: just passed the bar, but instead of following the corporate
Speaker 1: law route that she had originally charted and planned for herself,
Speaker 1: she's diving into her very first criminal case pro bono.
Speaker 1: So is he welcome to the show? Thank you? So,
Speaker 1: Jay's before we launch into everything that's wrong with the
Speaker 1: criminal legal system in Louisiana, especially in St. Timany Parish,
Speaker 1: and your case in particular, we'd like to get to
Speaker 1: know you a bit well. I was born in in
Speaker 1: probably Louisiana. My mother and my father separating when I
Speaker 1: was younger. Soul I had kind of been going back
Speaker 1: and forth between them, and we have to see permanent
Speaker 1: with my father, we're playing a lot of sports baseball, basketball, football,
Speaker 1: or they don't want I got a skateboard, so you
Speaker 1: were living a very active lifestyle and Slidell Louisiana with
Speaker 1: your dad. And to make better sense of this story,
Speaker 1: our audience might want to take a look at slide
Speaker 1: Dell on a map. Now, most people are familiar with
Speaker 1: New Orleans, of course, which is on the south side
Speaker 1: of Lake Poncha train. Slide Dell, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: is just across the lake to the northeast from New
Speaker 1: Orleans at another fifteen minutes east to Long I Tent
Speaker 1: brings you right into Mississippi. If you go west over
Speaker 1: the north side of Lake Ponta train, you go further
Speaker 1: into Louisiana where Jay's used to go to a skate park.
Speaker 1: So skateboarding was big for you, as was basketball. Right,
Speaker 1: How tall are you? I'm about six so six three four,
Speaker 1: definitely not around five nine, along with a number of
Speaker 1: other physical characteristics that should have disqualified you as a
Speaker 1: suspect in this crime, and also as evidenced by your
Speaker 1: squeaky clean record prior to this, if I understand correctly,
Speaker 1: you had never been in trouble with the law in
Speaker 1: a place where I understand it's a difficult maze to
Speaker 1: navigate for a young black man just to emerge unscathed, right,
Speaker 1: I say it, out of trouble that wasn't might face
Speaker 1: Being in Saint cam de Tardine in the Guisiana is
Speaker 1: a very very peculious situation for young black people, especially
Speaker 1: young black males. You have higher chance of being disadvantaged
Speaker 1: by the system coming out and scaged. It's rather hard
Speaker 1: whether you're a terrible person, a troublemaker, or you're not. No,
Speaker 1: you were not not even a smudge on your record.
Speaker 1: You are a great student athlete who simply had one
Speaker 1: unfortunate acquaintance. And we're gonna get to that in a minute,
Speaker 1: But first in Louisiana, from the post reconstruction Europe straight
Speaker 1: on through to a valid initiship of the past. In
Speaker 1: two thousand eighteen, Jason and so many others, countless others
Speaker 1: were or could have been convicted by a non unanimous jury.
Speaker 1: First by a jury of get this nine out of twelve,
Speaker 1: then they changed it to eventually they changed it to
Speaker 1: ten out of twelve. And the reason I don't want
Speaker 1: to insult anybody's innis because you probably already figured it
Speaker 1: out so they could disenfranchise black jurors and to make
Speaker 1: use of the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole as punishment for
Speaker 1: a crime, whether the person was guilty or not. Now,
Speaker 1: in covering this case, I came upon a person who
Speaker 1: helped to organize that two thousand eighteen ballot initiative. She's
Speaker 1: very active in St. Tammany and remembers Jason's trial. Well,
Speaker 1: my name is Belinda Parker Brown. I'm with Louisiana United International.
Speaker 1: We are civil constitutional human rights organization that focus on
Speaker 1: the injustice in the criminal justice system. Our organization is
Speaker 1: responsible for nicknaming this racist, unconstitutional Jim Crow law, this
Speaker 1: non unanimous jury verdict. We nickname it tint to. You know,
Speaker 1: I was so happy to see that happened during the
Speaker 1: mid terms. But here we are just after mid terms
Speaker 1: in which there were ballot and issues all over the
Speaker 1: country where the voters were given the opportunity to end
Speaker 1: the Thirteenth Amendment slavery loophole in their states. But and
Speaker 1: that measure was approved by the way and all of
Speaker 1: the other states that voted on it except for one, Louisiana.
Speaker 1: But Louisiana is not alone, far from it and still
Speaker 1: benefiting from slave labor. And it needs to stop in
Speaker 1: every state, especially when you have entire parishes or counties
Speaker 1: in this country seemingly devoted to pumping out one wrongful
Speaker 1: conviction after another. And of course, no one is more
Speaker 1: vulnerable to the machinery of our criminal legal system than
Speaker 1: the poor. They wind up taking a plea to things
Speaker 1: that they did not do. And that's what they were
Speaker 1: doing here in St. Tammany, forcing, threatening, badgering young black
Speaker 1: men to take please to things that they did not do,
Speaker 1: just because they could not afford attorney. And because of that,
Speaker 1: the lead district attorney, Walter Reid nickname this parish St.
Speaker 1: Tammany sat Slammony, and that became something that they celebrated
Speaker 1: here in this parish especially when the re elections and
Speaker 1: all of that stuff would come around. You know, they
Speaker 1: was tough on crime, and you know if you come
Speaker 1: over here with your cheewees and your your dread locks,
Speaker 1: and you know we're gonna get you, We're gonna lock
Speaker 1: you up and throw the key away. Right. I read
Speaker 1: the quote that I believe you're referring to, and at
Speaker 1: first I couldn't believe it was real because of just
Speaker 1: the naked racism of it. It was from the Sat.
Speaker 1: Tammany Sheriff Sheriff Jack Strain, and this is the guy
Speaker 1: who had been empowered there since he was running for
Speaker 1: re election in two thousand and ten, just after Jason's conviction,
Speaker 1: and on the campaign trail he said, and this is
Speaker 1: a direct quote, he said, for some reason, New Orleans
Speaker 1: chooses to caddle criminals in that area that tend to
Speaker 1: get away with a great deal. End quote. And first off,
Speaker 1: No Orleans Parish between Harry Conic Senor and Leon Cannazaro
Speaker 1: was notorious. But back to the quote, he said, quote,
Speaker 1: we will not coddle that trash in St. Tammany Parish.
Speaker 1: If you're going to walk the streets with dreadlocks and
Speaker 1: cheewie hairstyles. Then you can expect to get a visit
Speaker 1: from a sheriff's deputy. Everybody knew who he was talking about.
Speaker 1: It was the most profound racial sickness that can come
Speaker 1: out of a person's mouth that really, you know, inspired
Speaker 1: me to begin to protest against the sheriff's jail. It's
Speaker 1: like a god forsake and hail whole. You know, people
Speaker 1: were being beat and raped and committing so called suicide.
Speaker 1: And he had something that we nicknamed them the squirrel cages.
Speaker 1: These squirrel cages were these three by three or four
Speaker 1: by four ft cells. I mean they were like phone
Speaker 1: boats basically nowhere to move, just you could just stand
Speaker 1: still pretty much, and of course no plumbing in these
Speaker 1: world cages. They would defecate on themselves. They would put
Speaker 1: them in their butt naked for weeks. You know. People
Speaker 1: would just say, okay, I'll do whatever you want me
Speaker 1: to do. I'll say it, you know, I just want
Speaker 1: to get this over with. And using torture tactics like
Speaker 1: these pretty much insured that law enforce will get whatever
Speaker 1: statement they want to fix a rig a case. So
Speaker 1: add to that to nine unanimous jury verdicts and you've
Speaker 1: got a system fixed to maintain conviction rate. These are
Speaker 1: the tactics that they used in Jason's case, and we'll
Speaker 1: get to that in a bit. So, Linda, after Jason
Speaker 1: had already gone to prisident Sheriff Strain had made these
Speaker 1: comments while campaigning, your organization had taken to the streets
Speaker 1: to protest, doing the protests on public property. They came
Speaker 1: out and told us to get off of their land.
Speaker 1: And at that particular time, my youngest son, because he
Speaker 1: was videotaping for us at that protest, they arrested him
Speaker 1: and put him inside of one of those squirrel cages.
Speaker 1: And literally that put the gasoline on my fire to
Speaker 1: go after these people for the wrongdoing. So, if you
Speaker 1: take nothing else away from this story, is that you
Speaker 1: shouldn't funk with Belinda. So, the two people most responsible
Speaker 1: for Jason's wrongful conviction and countless others, the d A.
Speaker 1: Walter Reid, got convicted of a number of financial crimes,
Speaker 1: and from what I understand, those are the ones that
Speaker 1: the FBI can make sticks. But the sheriff, well, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna let you tell it, Jack Strange, he would spend
Speaker 1: the rest of his life in prison. This sheriff was
Speaker 1: just a very sick, sick man. You know. As an organizer,
Speaker 1: you know, people would come to me with these stories
Speaker 1: and I would like try to vet what they're saying.
Speaker 1: After we dug up everything that we possibly could on him.
Speaker 1: And it was over thirty three witnesses that was coming
Speaker 1: forth saying that the sheriff was raped, been people inside
Speaker 1: of the jail. He was charged with incests, raping and
Speaker 1: molesting his own family members. It's an absolute horror show,
Speaker 1: and it somehow gets worse. This sheriff was also brought
Speaker 1: up on bribery charges. They were privatizing the work release
Speaker 1: program basically slave trading under a different name, and he
Speaker 1: was getting kickbacks from those contending to take it private.
Speaker 1: Just it's unreal. Meanwhile, of course he was out there
Speaker 1: putting these people in squirrel cages, in these literal torture
Speaker 1: cages to supply fresh bodies for the slave trade. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if the people are aware that the
Speaker 1: state and the federal government gives so much money to
Speaker 1: the jails and prison and you got to be at
Speaker 1: least at occupancy before you can receive the federal and
Speaker 1: state funding. So not only did this uh Sheriff Strain
Speaker 1: have his own the various incentive to keep convictions up,
Speaker 1: as of course that the d a seeking reelection, but
Speaker 1: there's literally also a financial incentive from the state and
Speaker 1: federal government to keep up the supply of fresh bodies
Speaker 1: in a center. Not that same vile and perverse incentive
Speaker 1: leads many municipalities all over this country to operate this way,
Speaker 1: torturing or coursing statements from not only the quote unquote suspects,
Speaker 1: but witnesses as well. Jack Halstead was one of the
Speaker 1: corrupt prosecutors and that prosecuted Jayce that was known for
Speaker 1: badgering and threatening witnesses and tell him say if you
Speaker 1: don't say what it is we want you to say.
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna get your kids taken away from you.
Speaker 1: You're not going to be able to get a job.
Speaker 1: They literally made the people lives miserable. You know, we
Speaker 1: got people that would testify to that their doors and
Speaker 1: stuff were kicked in. Again, you've heard these tactics before
Speaker 1: on the show. And if police have never threatened you
Speaker 1: or coursed you this way, maybe you'd be inclined to
Speaker 1: believe the things they say. In court and find yourself
Speaker 1: among the ten at its wall who consistently voted to convict.
Speaker 1: And so as we begin to talk about this case
Speaker 1: in which there were two assailants, you'll see how these
Speaker 1: two now disgraced former elected officials, along with the Jim
Speaker 1: Crow era practice of non unanimous juries, we're all integral
Speaker 1: to Jason's conviction, as well as the perverse and centives
Speaker 1: locally for the sheriff of course, and from the state
Speaker 1: of federal government. And how and why these various actors
Speaker 1: in Stimmany Parish would decide to prosecute four young men
Speaker 1: in a case in which there were only two assailants.
Speaker 1: The two actual admitted assailants were Glenn Carter and Edric Cooper.
Speaker 1: Grant Gathers and our guest Jayce Washington were in addition
Speaker 1: to what was even called for now, Jason, you didn't
Speaker 1: even know Glenn, right, but I understand that you did
Speaker 1: know Grant and Edric the fool together, you know, create
Speaker 1: basketball and school together. Being Grant were a little a
Speaker 1: little more than acquaintance is now closer than and from
Speaker 1: what I understand, they both had a criminal record. Edric
Speaker 1: has admitted to making a habit of trading false or
Speaker 1: real information for freedom and his general occupation of petty
Speaker 1: theft and grant had been convicted once before, but his
Speaker 1: experience with the system in Sat Tammany played into his
Speaker 1: decision once they came after him for this. So that
Speaker 1: brings us to April twenty nine, two thousand seven. This
Speaker 1: crime happened in Slide L, Louisiana, just on the north
Speaker 1: side of Lake Concert Trade from New Orleans, where five
Speaker 1: or six undocumented workers were living in the trailer as
Speaker 1: a home base for their day labor jobs in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: Now being undocumented, these guys carried cash and we're not
Speaker 1: likely to go to law enforce, but if they were robbed,
Speaker 1: which made them easy targets. So, according to the initial
Speaker 1: statements from the victim's friends, two gunmen came into the
Speaker 1: trailer demanding money. The victim, Jose Carlos Martinez Carpio, had
Speaker 1: trouble understanding with the language barrier and attacked the gunmen
Speaker 1: with a kitchen knife or something, and he was fatally shot.
Speaker 1: The assailants then fled, leaving the rest of the men
Speaker 1: and the trailers stunned and grieving. As well as in
Speaker 1: almost impossibly precarious predicament. So some time went by before
Speaker 1: they called the police. The first nine one one call
Speaker 1: was at m It was a yeah, there a god
Speaker 1: thing next door to them. Ended up calling nomen one.
Speaker 1: That's what he explained that another twow that Minic had passed,
Speaker 1: Tom had passed from the time of the shots by
Speaker 1: and be not with one call. Was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do, and I want to bring Izzy
Speaker 1: in here now. Some of the witnesses in the trailer
Speaker 1: that night were interviewed by the police, right, yes, I
Speaker 1: think all of them were actually interviewed, But there were
Speaker 1: some of them that said that they heard the gunshot.
Speaker 1: They closed their doors and did not come outside at all.
Speaker 1: But there were two people who said that they described
Speaker 1: seeing two people, the gunmen, enter the mobile home. They
Speaker 1: had their faces covered, but their arms were there, and
Speaker 1: they could tell that they were black men. The taller
Speaker 1: of the two men went into the kitchen area and
Speaker 1: then they hurried gunshots coming from the kitchen area, and
Speaker 1: the shorter gunman who was at the door, he was
Speaker 1: nervous and so he fired his weapon onto the floor
Speaker 1: and then he also fled the area. So the gunman fled.
Speaker 1: The two witnesses are Echo, Gooyan and Avola. They said
Speaker 1: that one gunman was taller than the other, but not
Speaker 1: by much. They said that they were similar to their height,
Speaker 1: which was about five eight and five tin foot tall.
Speaker 1: Jay's stands about six four ft tall, and Carter and
Speaker 1: Cooper is about five eight five ten feet tall. Now,
Speaker 1: Jay's is a black man, but he is extremely light skinned.
Speaker 1: Carter is a little darker. The witnesses that were inside
Speaker 1: the home saw the arms of the assailants, said, no,
Speaker 1: they didn't have any tattoos. But if you look at
Speaker 1: Jay's he has clearly visible tattoos on both arms. So
Speaker 1: that's three major features right there that don't match the
Speaker 1: witness's descriptions that should have been right there. These are
Speaker 1: things that are not subject to the pitfalls of misidentification.
Speaker 1: You can't really mistake no tattoos for tattoos, dramatic contrast,
Speaker 1: and skin tone and six four for five eight. The
Speaker 1: two people that they saw in the mobile home did
Speaker 1: not match the description of Jace Washington or Grant Gathers
Speaker 1: for that matter. No, they matched the description of Cooper
Speaker 1: and Carter. Right. But at this point the cops just
Speaker 1: had two black men five eight and five ten, dark skin,
Speaker 1: no tattoos, both with guns, faces recovered. I believe they
Speaker 1: mentioned a Chevy Tahoe according to a report written by
Speaker 1: one of the detectives in this case, a detective Calendar.
Speaker 1: Other witnesses reported the Chevy Tahoe as well. Right a p.
Speaker 1: Thirty there was an eyewitness that reported to black males
Speaker 1: in a car very close to the crime area. One
Speaker 1: of the black males exit the car and appeared to
Speaker 1: be hiding a weapon in the bushes. The officers they
Speaker 1: were able to retrieve the gun and then trace the
Speaker 1: gun to one of the guns that was used in
Speaker 1: that robbery, and that's what led officer to arrest Carter
Speaker 1: in the first place. So they zeroed in on seventeen
Speaker 1: year old Glen Carter a few days later on May three,
Speaker 1: when he was thrown into a squirrel cage, and I
Speaker 1: believe he was facing the death penalty, so it's not
Speaker 1: a hard decision to cooperate. He confessed to the crime,
Speaker 1: giving a very similar story as the witnesses and gave
Speaker 1: up the name E for the initial E as his accomplice. Now,
Speaker 1: the police were already familiar with eighteen year old Edric
Speaker 1: Cooper as a known associate of Glenn Carter from previous running.
Speaker 1: So this was basically all the corroboration they needed to
Speaker 1: go scoop him up. Who were he was wanted by
Speaker 1: the detectives already a week earlier, they had been looking
Speaker 1: for him. That was the way they were able to
Speaker 1: identify who Glenn Carter was talking about its accompanied. So
Speaker 1: on May five, Edric Cooper, he also confessed, but he
Speaker 1: told the officers said there are two other people who
Speaker 1: were with him, Jay's Washington and Grant Gathers by Carter
Speaker 1: implicating him have already been wanted. Kind of pulled two
Speaker 1: names out the air to try to relieve some of
Speaker 1: the trouble that he was in. It could have been
Speaker 1: anybody that's paper were from other witnesses that was interviewed
Speaker 1: by detectives. They said he added four or three other names.
Speaker 1: You know, if the detectives knew Cooper was not telling
Speaker 1: the truth, because there were things that they already knew
Speaker 1: that Cooper did not realize they knew. Right, and as
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier, this was Cooper's emma to trade false
Speaker 1: information for freedom. Samet Tammany police knew that from previous interactions,
Speaker 1: but they were more than happy to work with him anyway.
Speaker 1: In the unrelated crime, the same thing happened. I witnesses
Speaker 1: the descriptions that s been Carter and Cooper called a
Speaker 1: toll on Cooper again, and when detectives asked Cooper about it,
Speaker 1: he complicated a third party, and I witnesses descriptions that
Speaker 1: they gave did not hit this third party. All the
Speaker 1: numbers are sailists, the number of stuff that that were
Speaker 1: seen in this other unrelated problem. Yep, deja vu all
Speaker 1: over again. And as we spoke about already, Samet Tammany
Speaker 1: E d the sheriff, the d A, they all had
Speaker 1: their own list of incentives to work with Cooper, and
Speaker 1: none of them were truth, justice or public safety. So
Speaker 1: what we're gonna see unfold here is the prosecution of
Speaker 1: Glen Carter on the basis of the witness statements from
Speaker 1: the trailer and his own confession. Then Edric Cooper fled
Speaker 1: guilty under the same set of facts, and then Jace
Speaker 1: gets prosecuted under a totally different narrative. The jury was
Speaker 1: kept completely in the dark and Cooper was allowed to
Speaker 1: change the details and manipulate the narrative over time in
Speaker 1: order to implicate two more young men, Jason Grant, in
Speaker 1: a crime in which there were only two assailants. So
Speaker 1: let's talk about the ever changing false narrative of Edric Cooper.
Speaker 1: The initial statement that he gave, he said all four
Speaker 1: of them wrote to the crime scene in Carter's vehicle.
Speaker 1: He said that he had a black nine millimeter luger,
Speaker 1: Jas had a thirty eight, and Carter had a forty five.
Speaker 1: He said Jason Carter entered the trailer and Cooper and
Speaker 1: Grant stood outside as the lookouts. And so when they
Speaker 1: heard the gunshot, that's when they all started running and
Speaker 1: they drove out of the crime scene, all four of
Speaker 1: them in Carter's car. That's the story that he told
Speaker 1: the officers. Glenn Carter, and the trailer witnesses said that Carter,
Speaker 1: the taller of the two gunmen, went into the kitchen
Speaker 1: while the shorter gunmen stayed in the front by the door.
Speaker 1: First of all, if James was one of the gunmen,
Speaker 1: then he most certainly would have been the taller one
Speaker 1: by far. Jace being six four is an irreconcilable truth
Speaker 1: on its face, as are the tattoos. Then you have
Speaker 1: the witnesses that reported seeing the gun drop outside the tahoe.
Speaker 1: And just like Glenn Carter and the witnesses from the trailer,
Speaker 1: they also only reported seeing two men. So despite what
Speaker 1: detectives with any sort of moral compass should have done,
Speaker 1: they got in the rest warrant for Jason and the
Speaker 1: search warrant for Jason's father's house. Now, remember we have
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter with the murder weapon of forty five, then
Speaker 1: Jay's allegedly with the thirty eight, and Edrek Cooper outside
Speaker 1: with a nine millimeter Luger. So Jason's father legally owned
Speaker 1: a nine millimeter Ruger handgun. So when they found that gun,
Speaker 1: Cooper changed his statement to say Ruger, so Ruger not Luger.
Speaker 1: And then he also changed his statement to say that
Speaker 1: it wasn't him, it was Chase that had that gun. Okay.
Speaker 1: So now with Jase's plausible access to his father's Ruger
Speaker 1: not Luger Ruger, Cooper has not only to change the
Speaker 1: brand of gun, but also to switch gun placements between
Speaker 1: him and Jay's. So in this version of events, Cooper
Speaker 1: was allegedly outside now with the thirty eight. Now didn't
Speaker 1: the trailer witnesses say that the gunman by the front
Speaker 1: door had fired his weapon into the floor. Yes, the
Speaker 1: thirty eight gun was actually fired in the trailer, So
Speaker 1: Cooper changed the statement to include him and Grant Gathers
Speaker 1: all in the trailer, four people in the trailer instead
Speaker 1: of just two people that he had initially said. So
Speaker 1: the only thing from his initial statement that remained the same,
Speaker 1: and but the only thing that was consistent with glen
Speaker 1: Carter's statement was that Glen Carter used to forty five.
Speaker 1: Other than that, the brand of nine milliminter changed, as
Speaker 1: did who was holding it in order to match what
Speaker 1: the police had found at Jason's father's house, And then
Speaker 1: the number of people in the trailer had to change
Speaker 1: in order to make room for the fact that the
Speaker 1: thirty eight had been fired, as well as the change
Speaker 1: of who was holding what gun Jason allegedly with his
Speaker 1: father's ruger and Cooper firing the thirty eight into the ground.
Speaker 1: As the witnesses in the trailer had said, and as
Speaker 1: you had mentioned earlier, a lot of those people that
Speaker 1: lived inside the home were immigrants that did not have
Speaker 1: the proper authorization to remain in the United States. So
Speaker 1: right after the incident happened, they were all arrested and detained.
Speaker 1: They already detained until December of that same year, when
Speaker 1: who I believe is the current d A of St.
Speaker 1: Tammany Parish filed a petition with the cord and said
Speaker 1: that these guys were victims and so did not deserve
Speaker 1: to be detained and they had to be released. After
Speaker 1: they were released, one of those people also started change
Speaker 1: in history. The Currencier is war in Montgomery and he
Speaker 1: worked with the Public Defender's Office at the time. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the undocumented workers, either at Cogoyan or Avelo,
Speaker 1: changed their story to maybe possibly include a third or
Speaker 1: fourth assailant to give the state the wiggle room they
Speaker 1: needed to eventually prosecute Jason Grant. But back to the
Speaker 1: immediate aftermath, So both you and Grant were about to
Speaker 1: be arrested. They end up coming to you from my
Speaker 1: home the next day. You don't have enough money for
Speaker 1: an attorney. It took us a long time to figure
Speaker 1: out what was being saying and who said so, no
Speaker 1: money for an attorney means no money for bail, and
Speaker 1: you've got no information about why you're even there. I
Speaker 1: can't even imagine what must have been going through your mind.
Speaker 1: They take shock world change the fool. Some of them
Speaker 1: have two people that someone still have handcuffs on, you know,
Speaker 1: nineteen years old to process what's going all. They put
Speaker 1: me right into one of those world keys and I'm
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out how did I get here.
Speaker 1: This episode is underwritten by A i G, a leading
Speaker 1: global insurance company. A i G is committed to corporate
Speaker 1: social responsibility and is making a positive difference in the
Speaker 1: lives of its employees and in the communities where we
Speaker 1: work and live. In light of the compelling need for
Speaker 1: pro bono legal assistance, and in recognition of a i
Speaker 1: g s commitment to criminal and social justice reform, the
Speaker 1: A i G pro Bono Program provides free legal services
Speaker 1: and other support to underrepresented communities and individuals. Flour was
Speaker 1: set in two four Black Bodies and as as things
Speaker 1: we revealed that work against the detective in the stage theory,
Speaker 1: all the game was initiated change and this could have
Speaker 1: been remedied from the beginning if TETs, Calendar Technogi Candidadil
Speaker 1: had done their job, and it seems they might have
Speaker 1: been doing their job. It's just not the job that
Speaker 1: they pretended is in public. So you were stuck in
Speaker 1: jail awaiting trial with one piece of information, a report
Speaker 1: from Detective Calendar about the investigation. Meanwhile, they were out
Speaker 1: there trying to fix the case against you. So they
Speaker 1: tried to corroborate Edric Cooper's narrative and they had to
Speaker 1: change it several times by now already just to fIF
Speaker 1: the facts. And then DNA evidence was also conducted because
Speaker 1: he had said that they rode in an out in
Speaker 1: Carter's car, and he said Carter gave them certain items
Speaker 1: from his car, like a bandanna and items to cover
Speaker 1: their faces. They seized Carter's car, tested it thoroughly for
Speaker 1: DNA evidence. There is not a single instant where Jason's
Speaker 1: or Grant Gather's DNA was found in any of the
Speaker 1: items that were found in Carter's car or anything in
Speaker 1: Carter's car, which had they been in there, finding neither
Speaker 1: of their DNA. That's not plausible, maybe not even possible. Yes,
Speaker 1: So Cooper then changes the story to say that Grant
Speaker 1: and Jays were in one car and he and Carter
Speaker 1: were in Carter's car. That's convenient, so okay boom, a
Speaker 1: new non existent, nondescript car gets introduced. What's odd, though,
Speaker 1: is that this narrative is only president in Jason's case.
Speaker 1: Great Gathers, on the other hand, had a prior and
Speaker 1: had he gone to trial, he could have got life.
Speaker 1: So he played guilty in exchange for leniency, understandably in
Speaker 1: his plea though, he copped to being in the Chevy Tahoe,
Speaker 1: but because he didn't fight it, the fact that DNA
Speaker 1: testing excluded him from the Tahoe didn't matter. He just
Speaker 1: took the seven years or whatever they gave him to
Speaker 1: get out of his squirrel cage, and Jays would have
Speaker 1: been out in like the latest had he done the same.
Speaker 1: They never in a million years expecting me to go
Speaker 1: to trial and fighting. They were expecting me guilty. From
Speaker 1: the moment that he was arrested. All that they wanted
Speaker 1: him to do was just say you're guilty. Just say
Speaker 1: you did it, so then we gave you a man's
Speaker 1: a lot of charge and you probably get like ten years.
Speaker 1: And he kept insisting that he's not going to bleed
Speaker 1: guilty to something that he hadn't done, and they tried
Speaker 1: to in the next three or four times after I
Speaker 1: asked for an a turn, which is a constitutional to
Speaker 1: take the states, they would sin try to sing different
Speaker 1: people in there too to give me to make a succession.
Speaker 1: At one point, you can tell me when I asked
Speaker 1: from my attorney, oh, well, you're gonna have a public
Speaker 1: depended the cublic. Disfinder doesn't care about you, so it's
Speaker 1: your best interests to just go ahead. And I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm all my lord. You know at this point to
Speaker 1: kind of get aditated, I'm all my lord. So after
Speaker 1: a while that they finally kicked me in the process
Speaker 1: and on my way out, the former Sheriff Jack Strain
Speaker 1: made it tell me that this is in New Orleans.
Speaker 1: You know at this time I had the chip straight
Speaker 1: lock testile. Sheriff Strain was very clear about his views
Speaker 1: in his re election campaign in twos ten. He equated
Speaker 1: the cheewie dreadlock hairstyle with criminal behavior, and it's probably
Speaker 1: why he operated the way he did. So the squirrel
Speaker 1: cage didn't work on you. Reasoning with you about how
Speaker 1: you're going to get terrible representation hadn't worked. What happened next,
Speaker 1: I was taking out of the world cage, and I
Speaker 1: was placed in the whole nay day, couldn't see the news.
Speaker 1: I had to ask someone print of mine to see
Speaker 1: me getting the print out of an article to just
Speaker 1: kind of get an understanding of what exactly they were
Speaker 1: saying what's going on, because we still don't know what's
Speaker 1: going on. I don't think they knew what was going
Speaker 1: on because they hadn't decided on the narrative that they
Speaker 1: were going to frame you with yet. So you got
Speaker 1: out of the whole after ninety days, met with your
Speaker 1: public defender, and finally got to see a report from
Speaker 1: Detective Stacy Calendar. But years later we find out that
Speaker 1: a lot of the stuff she put in that through
Speaker 1: investigative calls intigating and fabricating. She sabricated witnesses statements evident,
Speaker 1: She changes the descriptions to go out witnesses guils, She
Speaker 1: changes things that Cooper tells her. She just changes things
Speaker 1: throughout her investigative report to make their investigations seem tighter.
Speaker 1: And what she's saying in her report and the investigations
Speaker 1: done by the tact is not match at all. And
Speaker 1: like you said, you didn't find this out until years later, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: you did not have the benefit of effective counsel or
Speaker 1: the opportunity to review those materials to make that comparison yourself. Certainly,
Speaker 1: neither your first public defender, James Tally, or your second,
Speaker 1: Melissa Brink, were able to develop a defense outlining the
Speaker 1: discrepancies between detective calendars report and the actual investigation. Maybe
Speaker 1: a year and a half. The only thing I had
Speaker 1: was her investigated before just restricted her words. I had
Speaker 1: no witness transness for witness statement or anything like that,
Speaker 1: so I'm trying to build a disinth. Awful was in
Speaker 1: this report. And then maybe a two months before trial,
Speaker 1: doll In the nine did come back. And now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden that changed. You know, I got up
Speaker 1: an open court and I explained to Judge Richard Swart
Speaker 1: what was taking place, and the answer he gave me
Speaker 1: was less of breaking hand to me and that that
Speaker 1: assessment turned out to be very, very, very incorrect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she was handling what like three seventy cases. I mean,
Speaker 1: I gotta pause there again, that's crazy when she should
Speaker 1: have had I mean, even a hundred and fifty would
Speaker 1: have been an incredible strain on anyone. The ineffective council
Speaker 1: was virtually guaranteed. As it is with so many indigent
Speaker 1: defendants all over the country, the constitutional violation is built
Speaker 1: right in. So Glenn Carter went to out first, followed
Speaker 1: by Edric Cooper, then you, then Grant, and all four
Speaker 1: of you were found guilty separately, and I mean very separately.
Speaker 1: And can you explain what I'm talking about? Well? First,
Speaker 1: Glenn Carter was fried August two thousand and eight. He
Speaker 1: was convicted with evidence of only him and Edrek Cooper
Speaker 1: committing his prime right, so consistent with the original witness
Speaker 1: statements and his own admission right, there was no evidence
Speaker 1: presented by the state of three and four other people.
Speaker 1: The next day, after Lin Carter was convicted, ed Cooper
Speaker 1: played guilty, but under the factional basis that it was
Speaker 1: only him and Carter who committed the crime. So everything
Speaker 1: that Glenn Carter and Andrew Cooper copped at their proceedings
Speaker 1: exonerated deal you earned even mentioned in those proceedings. What
Speaker 1: about his statement that was eventually used against you. The
Speaker 1: next day, after pleading guilty, the detectives took him for
Speaker 1: attorney's office to another slow location. No one's turned and
Speaker 1: nobody knows where they were to re interview him, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, miraculously, the second statement comes up,
Speaker 1: and it seeks to validate the initial investigation. That it's
Speaker 1: not a repeal. So Cooper's initial statement, which served as
Speaker 1: the probable cause to arrest you and search your father's house,
Speaker 1: in which he admitted to his involvement, that was not
Speaker 1: even brought up at his proceedings, probably because it was
Speaker 1: so wildly and completely out of step with reality. But
Speaker 1: now they needed a new statement that wasn't so obviously false,
Speaker 1: that included you and Grant Gathers. And the only thing
Speaker 1: about this new statement that even vaguely resembled the initial
Speaker 1: statement was that you two were there and the carter
Speaker 1: used a forty five. They also now had one of
Speaker 1: the trailer witnesses allegedly giving them that wiggle room of well,
Speaker 1: maybe there was a third or fourth assailant. Who knows
Speaker 1: if this change was just the translator taking some sort
Speaker 1: of creative license, and it could have been, But how
Speaker 1: did the judge he even allow this to go on.
Speaker 1: We're talking about the narrative of a crime that have
Speaker 1: just appeared twice in front of the court. Judge Curius,
Speaker 1: the judge that did Carters trial, and the Cooper was
Speaker 1: flee once he took the plea from Predrick. Cooper said
Speaker 1: an open court on the record that he was recognizing
Speaker 1: these as sticulated facts. Basically, he used the legal term
Speaker 1: he was taking judicial notice, which is he's saying he's
Speaker 1: taking these facts that he's been watching throughout the Carter
Speaker 1: proceedings and now at this Cooper proceedings, he's saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: this is what y'all are saying happened in this crime.
Speaker 1: These are the facts of the case. So Judge Curius
Speaker 1: was not going to excel up the facts that were
Speaker 1: presented at my trial. And what happened was I was
Speaker 1: miraculously taking out a Judge Burius court basing entirely different
Speaker 1: set action where a different set of facts were consinting
Speaker 1: to a different judge saying that hey, to completely irreconscilable
Speaker 1: things happened in this case. Yeah, you just can't have
Speaker 1: to contradicting the artives of the same crime. So even
Speaker 1: though they switched you to a different judge, Judge Schwartz,
Speaker 1: I mean, wouldn't he just see the same thing that Bursted.
Speaker 1: The state must have recognized that this was weak footing.
Speaker 1: Jason's trial was in October twelve, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: October nine, they were presenting him with a plea deal
Speaker 1: to testify against Grant Gethers, and he said he can't
Speaker 1: testify against Grant because he wasn't there. So you're sticking
Speaker 1: to your innocence to the better end. Did your public
Speaker 1: defender try to encourage you to take a play? Yes,
Speaker 1: every day until October fourteen without an Obviously the day
Speaker 1: I was found guilty, and I keep telling her the
Speaker 1: same thing over and over and over again, and I'm
Speaker 1: not too guilty. Is something that I didn't do, and
Speaker 1: just out of curiosity. What did they offer is ten
Speaker 1: years That was ultimately grand Gathers decision into eight years.
Speaker 1: I was found guilty of a lesser charge. Grand Gathers
Speaker 1: would have been going to trial for a second to
Speaker 1: he murdered, which in Louisiana mandatory life citizens no parole.
Speaker 1: So it was decision between eight years mandatory life with
Speaker 1: no parole. That's pretty easy math to do. And I
Speaker 1: guess he didn't know about the DNA evidence that excluded
Speaker 1: him from ever having entered Glen Carter Chevy Tahoe. That
Speaker 1: was a part of the narrative of his proceedings. And
Speaker 1: what about the evidence presented in Carter and Cooper's proceedings.
Speaker 1: You think your attorney would be a little more confident
Speaker 1: and you would have fared a lot better at trial.
Speaker 1: But what happened. Tried to get cause of confessions that
Speaker 1: it's not a razing, introduced a trial so security to
Speaker 1: hear the shot it down. He said it it wasn't trustworth,
Speaker 1: wasn't trustworthy. They just used it to send two men away,
Speaker 1: one for life. It didn't make any sense, and we
Speaker 1: never heard that the twelve people had much while still
Speaker 1: don't know to this date that this succession existed. And
Speaker 1: if they had a reasonable likelihoods that I would have
Speaker 1: got not guilty burden. I mean, what else are we
Speaker 1: supposed to conclude about this? Judge, he saw the evidence
Speaker 1: from the other two proceedings which impeached the testimony of
Speaker 1: the state start witness against you, and he excluded it.
Speaker 1: So now the jury only here is the narrative of
Speaker 1: Edric Cooper, and they have no idea how many times
Speaker 1: it changed or how fundamental those changes were. And as
Speaker 1: we've mentioned, U until this point the impeachment evidence for
Speaker 1: Cooper's testimony had not been developed very well by Jason's attorney.
Speaker 1: The prosecution, you know, they had the burden, but their
Speaker 1: burden was very simple, was just really getting Cooper to
Speaker 1: tell the most recent version of events. The defense's job
Speaker 1: was probably harder. That she needed to be extremely organized
Speaker 1: to list all those statements that Cooper had said that
Speaker 1: we're in true and then actually also do the extra
Speaker 1: work to show that even if we're supposed to believe
Speaker 1: the last statement that he's given and disregard all the
Speaker 1: prior statements that he's saying, this last statement that he's
Speaker 1: saying cannot even be true. And she didn't do that.
Speaker 1: She didn't have the time to do all the investigation,
Speaker 1: or probably didn't have the resources to do the investigations
Speaker 1: that she needed to do, and so she went to
Speaker 1: trial unprepared and the jury could not follow. She didn't
Speaker 1: effectively demonstrate the whole cluster fuck around the narrative change
Speaker 1: in between Cooper outside the trailer with a nine millimeter
Speaker 1: luger and Jay's inside with a thirty eight to then
Speaker 1: Jason with a nine millimeter ruger, and all four of
Speaker 1: them inside the trailer. Then you have one witness like
Speaker 1: likely threatened with deportation or worse, changing their story to
Speaker 1: include the possibility of more sales than the original two,
Speaker 1: then going from one car to two cars because DNA
Speaker 1: evidence excluded Jay's How this issue wasn't raised It just
Speaker 1: baffles and infuriates me. But then there's this phone record
Speaker 1: evidence that was introduced to draw connection between Jason Glenn Carter,
Speaker 1: but it could have easily been used to impeach Cooper's
Speaker 1: ever changing narrative. Cooper had made statements about how he
Speaker 1: Jason Grant went to Mississippi earlier in the day, when
Speaker 1: the phone records show that Jason Grant had never left Louisiana.
Speaker 1: She could have connected those dots. Are called an expert
Speaker 1: to extrapolate a clear vision of Cooper's lives from the
Speaker 1: phone record, but again she was just overwhelmed and not
Speaker 1: prepared to do that, which could have been a game changer.
Speaker 1: So Cooper had initially told officers that he and Jays
Speaker 1: and Grant they had been in Mississippi and then they
Speaker 1: returned to Slydale on Sunday, which was the day of
Speaker 1: the incident, about five or so. What is interesting was
Speaker 1: that Jay's had a purchase receipt that showed that he
Speaker 1: was already in Louisiana around three pm. So at trial,
Speaker 1: Cooper changed the testimony again to say that they arrived
Speaker 1: in Slydale at ten am. So this appears to just
Speaker 1: more of the police and Andrew Cooper perfecting his statement
Speaker 1: to align with reality. And that's what you have to
Speaker 1: do with lies. So how did they try to connect
Speaker 1: Jase with Glenn Carter? Cooper said that when he got
Speaker 1: to Slideale, he called Carter on Jason's phone. He said
Speaker 1: that that's when they all got together with Carter, and
Speaker 1: that's when they planned the robbery together. And then he
Speaker 1: also said that after the robbery, when they were fleeing
Speaker 1: the area, he said that Jay's called Carter on Carter's
Speaker 1: phone and Carter did not answer, So they asked him
Speaker 1: how many times did he call and he said he
Speaker 1: called just once. When all four of them were initially arrested,
Speaker 1: there were two numbers that were listed for Carter. One number,
Speaker 1: the officers found out quickly was not Carter's number, so
Speaker 1: they proceeded with just the remaining number, and so that
Speaker 1: number that they proceeded through before Jays's trial as Carter's number.
Speaker 1: That number never appeared on Jas's phone, so not at
Speaker 1: either time to Cooper alleged ten am or nine pm.
Speaker 1: So how did they had to make it look like
Speaker 1: Jason Carter spoke on the phone. About a week before
Speaker 1: Jason's trial, the prosecution goes into Jays's phone, there was
Speaker 1: a phone call from Jayce's number at eight so the
Speaker 1: prosecution presented this number as Carter's number. So the prosecution
Speaker 1: just took whatever number Jay's called around the time of
Speaker 1: the crime and just told the jury that that was
Speaker 1: Carter's number to match up with Cooper's latest version of events.
Speaker 1: So let's try to unravel this one. Cooper said that
Speaker 1: when Jay's called Carter that Carter did not answer, But
Speaker 1: the number that Jay's called around nine eighteen, it shows
Speaker 1: that the person actually answered and there was a conversation,
Speaker 1: and it shows that a few minutes or so after,
Speaker 1: Jay's called that number again and the person also answered.
Speaker 1: And so I'm sure our audience won't be surprised to
Speaker 1: find out that the number that they presented as Carter's
Speaker 1: during trial only appeared in the evening, not at ten am,
Speaker 1: as Cooper had said, thereby exposing get another one of
Speaker 1: this guy's lives. After trial, Jay's, this attorney filed a
Speaker 1: writ with a Cord for a subpoena to get that
Speaker 1: phone record to verify if that number was Carter's number.
Speaker 1: The number that Cooper had testified at trial to be
Speaker 1: Carter's number, and that number turned out not to be
Speaker 1: Carter's number. If you read the Court of Appeals opinion
Speaker 1: on Jesu's case, it appears that that's something that they
Speaker 1: consider to be important that the state was able to
Speaker 1: establish that connection between Jay's and Carter using that phone record.
Speaker 1: But the phone record that they presented was in Carter's
Speaker 1: phone number, And what the prosecution did was they just
Speaker 1: presented the number and showed it to Cooper at trial
Speaker 1: and said that whose number is this? And then Cooper goes,
Speaker 1: this is Jase's number. Whose number is this? And then
Speaker 1: he goes, that's Carter's number. Who's the number calling this number?
Speaker 1: And it's like Jas's number calling Carter's number. Then they
Speaker 1: bring Carter's girlfriend to the stand. Carter's girlfriend. This is
Speaker 1: two years later, two years after this incident had happened.
Speaker 1: Carter's girlfriend comes to the stand and then the prosecution
Speaker 1: asked her back in April of two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: was Glenn Carter your boyfriend? And she says yes, sir.
Speaker 1: And the prosecution goes and Glen's Carters being convicted of murder?
Speaker 1: Is that correct? She goes, yes, sir, in April of
Speaker 1: two thousand, what was Glenn Carter's phone number? Then she
Speaker 1: lists the number that Jay's dialed on the night of
Speaker 1: the incident. She lists that as Carter's number for memory.
Speaker 1: Two years, two years she remembered that number like that
Speaker 1: from memory. And this is the part where I just
Speaker 1: felt so disappointed in Jays's attorney at the time, because
Speaker 1: she just basically said, I have no questions. She did
Speaker 1: not cross examined this witness to even understand how she
Speaker 1: remembered Carter's number. She did not cross examine Cooper to
Speaker 1: even find out how he remembered that to be Carter's number.
Speaker 1: Two years after the incident happened. She did find out
Speaker 1: that this was not in fact Carter's number, that both
Speaker 1: of these witnesses perjured themselves, but too little, too late.
Speaker 1: I've got to imagine that having the memorize a number
Speaker 1: off of Jas's phone that wasn't their friend Glenn Carter's
Speaker 1: had to have been the prosecution's idea. But if I
Speaker 1: were on the jury, I mean, after hearing Cooper's testimony,
Speaker 1: not knowing all the inconsistencies with prior statements or how
Speaker 1: it was contradicted by witness statements, and having that testimony
Speaker 1: corroborated by the phone records, I can see how the
Speaker 1: jury was fooled. And even with that, there was at
Speaker 1: least one person on the jury that said that they
Speaker 1: didn't believe what the state was saying. They had that
Speaker 1: testimony from Cooper. Cooper's credibility wasn't properly impeached by Jaycee's attorney,
Speaker 1: and they ended up buying his story over the story
Speaker 1: that Jaycee's attorney. Because I don't even know what story
Speaker 1: she was trying to tell, she didn't put up that defense.
Speaker 1: There were so many other people who are willing to
Speaker 1: testify about Jessee's whereabouts. There were so many other witnesses
Speaker 1: that she just didn't call. In the beginning, all that
Speaker 1: she wanted to do was for Jay's to plead guilty,
Speaker 1: So she wasn't preparing for a trial other than the
Speaker 1: inadequate and disorganized cross examination. I think she put your
Speaker 1: dad on the stand to say that you didn't have
Speaker 1: access to his gun and that you were home at
Speaker 1: the time of the crime. Unfortunately, alibi defense from family
Speaker 1: rarely does the track. So other than that, did your
Speaker 1: attorney present any defense at all? She called no witnesses,
Speaker 1: She presented none of the evidence, none of the fall records,
Speaker 1: no expert for the fall records, nothing. She did. Nothing.
Speaker 1: She she put together, no the fit to actively test
Speaker 1: the theory. And they find a lot of timeline of
Speaker 1: etty Poble and the state. All of the evidence that
Speaker 1: I have now proving what I'm saying, all of it
Speaker 1: was ad by the state, stuff that they call open discovery,
Speaker 1: stuff that she could have pulled, looked at, and been
Speaker 1: able to sit the pool, which just points out that
Speaker 1: the state had to have known what they were doing.
Speaker 1: This was their information and they simply used it to
Speaker 1: guide the actual guilty party to frame an innocent man.
Speaker 1: I'm mean, did you have any hope after shooting through
Speaker 1: this sham trial? Yes? Because Cooper admitted to Lyne the
Speaker 1: day after he took that guilty plead. You know, he
Speaker 1: was asked the question and he was like, Okay, y'all
Speaker 1: lied then too, but I'm not lying right now. And
Speaker 1: I think that was one of the biggest things that
Speaker 1: made me believe that I mean to come out of
Speaker 1: this all right. You know, he wasn't a unanimous bird.
Speaker 1: He was non unanimous. Knowing that jury polled. You had
Speaker 1: one white lady. You could see that she was rather
Speaker 1: perturbed by the fact that the other eleven jurors could
Speaker 1: not see pass them saying I committed a crime the
Speaker 1: one that youry posed. She was physically angry that this
Speaker 1: was happening because she was able to see for the
Speaker 1: state of saying with Edrid Coogler saying doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 1: So he was acquitted of the second degree murder, and
Speaker 1: then they found him guilty of the manslaughter. In that moment,
Speaker 1: trying to wrap my head around what was going on
Speaker 1: and how it had taken place. It wasn't very secretive.
Speaker 1: They're not even sweeping it under the rug anymore. They
Speaker 1: just dunking it on the ground and leaving it there.
Speaker 1: In that moment, I kind of realized what I was
Speaker 1: dealing with. That gifted Bernie came. I realized I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with a monster. I was sentenced to twenty five years
Speaker 1: twenty five Paul Laver Dick and ditches the can hold
Speaker 1: surrounded by a white guys on a horse with rifles
Speaker 1: and dign't you're you're pulling vegetables? I mean call a label.
Speaker 1: And since the day wasn't a day, you know that's
Speaker 1: that's not slavery. And I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1: It is quite literally slavery according to the thirteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: and then according to voters in mid terms of voter
Speaker 1: to keep slavery as a punishment for a crime in Louisiana.
Speaker 1: I mean between all of the official and prosecutor misconduct,
Speaker 1: the incentives to keep the jail in prison population up,
Speaker 1: and how woefully overworked and underfunded the public defender's offices,
Speaker 1: it's almost like this is what the legislature has planned
Speaker 1: for poor people across Louisiana, let alone all over our country.
Speaker 1: Having a public defender who could not possibly organize or
Speaker 1: present an adequate defense is not the exception, it's the
Speaker 1: rule for indigent defendants. It's a built in constitutional violation
Speaker 1: of the right to effective assistance of council. So there's
Speaker 1: a that was I want to SAY fund, US Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, the American University of Washington, BC, and the
Speaker 1: findings of the report established that in the Descendants and
Speaker 1: SAY time, the parish are routinely depride their constitutional rights
Speaker 1: and their new process. There was a sixty minute sex
Speaker 1: and the two thousand and seventeen with Anison Cooper and
Speaker 1: several public defenders from Louisiana were interviewed and they were
Speaker 1: explaining that it's like an assembly line in Louisiana. There's
Speaker 1: an abject underfunding the state Legislator of the Public Defenders
Speaker 1: Office in Louisiana, and they're basically operating on a budget
Speaker 1: where they cannot give the constitutionally required representations to defendants,
Speaker 1: and they spent no remedies, and no one is addressing
Speaker 1: the people who are being objected. The dominantly lack of
Speaker 1: mirror as it affected you and continues to affects other folks,
Speaker 1: and you have not been taking this line down between
Speaker 1: stints out in the fields, you and studying the law
Speaker 1: and aggressively filing pro SAY emotions as well as having
Speaker 1: some legal help along the way. But unfortunately you're being
Speaker 1: denied where it seems pretty clear that you should not
Speaker 1: be especially on the very basic ineffective assistance of counsel claim.
Speaker 1: And you know what that last motion she filed, she
Speaker 1: talked about things she should have done prior to trial,
Speaker 1: and she just kind of laid it all out so
Speaker 1: that I could come back and fighting or post adgtional
Speaker 1: collateral attack. She even made the comment to me that
Speaker 1: I should get some kind of relief from not being
Speaker 1: able to use called a statement and trial. She was
Speaker 1: in the belief that Okay, hey, that was so big
Speaker 1: that it's going to get the case overturns. But just
Speaker 1: every time it comes back the same name, Nahna. All
Speaker 1: the other appeals that he filed for the court have
Speaker 1: also been denied because the standard of review on appealed,
Speaker 1: especially if you challenge the insufficient and see of evidence,
Speaker 1: is that the court just holds the position that if
Speaker 1: the jury believed these things to be true, then we're
Speaker 1: also going to believe it to be true. So Cooper's
Speaker 1: version of events, that's what the Court of appeals take
Speaker 1: to be true. And so when the court finds that
Speaker 1: a reasonable jury could come to that conclusion based on
Speaker 1: these facts, then the court will affirm the person's conviction.
Speaker 1: Cooper's testimony is what is following Jay's With every appeal
Speaker 1: that he files, his appeals get denied. But what Jay's
Speaker 1: has been challenging is that the testimonies, the evidence of
Speaker 1: the prosecution presented to the jury were not true. Right,
Speaker 1: They presented false evidence, and one can surmise easily that
Speaker 1: they had to know that they were doing so, considering
Speaker 1: how they helped Cooper shape and mold his statements over
Speaker 1: time to drag two innocent people into this situation contrary
Speaker 1: to the initial witnessed statements and the factual basis presented
Speaker 1: at both Carter's and Cooper's proceedings. But shortly after your conviction,
Speaker 1: between conviction and sentencing, I believe Rick Cooper gave a
Speaker 1: recantation that is believed to have been made before trial.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Is he? Yes? This is August twenty
Speaker 1: so if I'm reading the date right, this was probably
Speaker 1: before Jason's trial on August two thousand and nine, where
Speaker 1: Cooper signed an affidavit that he was ready to present
Speaker 1: to the court to say that he had lied about
Speaker 1: the whole thing, that every statement that he had provided
Speaker 1: was a lie, and that he was scared eighteen year
Speaker 1: old boy that he knew James had never been in
Speaker 1: any type of criminal trouble, and so because of that,
Speaker 1: he implicated James. Because he knew that Jas wasn't going
Speaker 1: to get convicted, well, clearly he didn't understand what he
Speaker 1: was dealing with in St. Tammany Parish. So he wrote
Speaker 1: this prior to Jason's trial, but no one was aware
Speaker 1: of it until between Jase's conviction and his sentencing. What
Speaker 1: happens was, I go to Calle the Cidency, and Jack
Speaker 1: hoff stands. Attorney's office prints him purjury if he goes
Speaker 1: through with can Grant Davis, he did recantation, explaining that
Speaker 1: he was falkennificated in the crime. Grant said that he
Speaker 1: wasn't there either, and that whatever it is that he
Speaker 1: said about Jaycee's involvement, it's not true. All of this
Speaker 1: is taken and once again manipulated in the States favor,
Speaker 1: like Cooper was forced to make those he can't taste,
Speaker 1: or same thing with grand Gethers. And they're making me
Speaker 1: look like I'm the wolf, you know, like I'm this
Speaker 1: a big bad guy that trying to force things into
Speaker 1: his fable and the whole time it's the opposite. Classic projection.
Speaker 1: All of these witnesses that they called credible at your trial,
Speaker 1: whom they had coerced into line. They then threatened them
Speaker 1: with perjury for trying to say something they knew to
Speaker 1: be true from their own investigation. So they got Cooper
Speaker 1: and Grant to keep quiet. What about Glenn Carter? Carter
Speaker 1: actually wrote me a letter that I have and he's
Speaker 1: playing in another that piece were awful that I end
Speaker 1: up getting caught up in all it. So Carter wrote
Speaker 1: a letter to jas in which he said a number
Speaker 1: of things, but the most important here that he said
Speaker 1: is that but when all of this is over, you
Speaker 1: could send somebody at me to sign the papers for you.
Speaker 1: Since E which is Dric and Grant not gonna do it.
Speaker 1: I don't feel like you should be in here anyway.
Speaker 1: You didn't do anything, So, like I said, let me
Speaker 1: get my ship situated and I might do that for you.
Speaker 1: I know who was there, and I didn't see you,
Speaker 1: and I took that and I said, maybe as well
Speaker 1: get a new trial. Just watched that Dad now and
Speaker 1: as well without even addressing the significance of that letter
Speaker 1: in cooperations everything there I was saying before in doing
Speaker 1: the trial letters from all three of them have been
Speaker 1: shot down saying basically, did they hold no credibility? It's
Speaker 1: funny how they will find recantations not credible, but that
Speaker 1: doesn't drag into question any previous statements made in court
Speaker 1: by the same person, like did they recently learned how
Speaker 1: to become a liar? Is that the basic theory. The
Speaker 1: only metric they're using for credibility seems to be if
Speaker 1: it maintains a conviction and suits their narrative. And in
Speaker 1: your case, the state had the evidence that discredited the
Speaker 1: statements made against you a trial. But somehow these recantations
Speaker 1: are the incredible statements, so incredible in fact, that when
Speaker 1: Jace received these recantation letters, his cell got tossed. Do
Speaker 1: I have that right, Jason? Yeah? That was in two
Speaker 1: thousand and ten. I had the letters from Grant and
Speaker 1: at what happened was they came to all of myself
Speaker 1: and a lot of my early pictures. I've never seen
Speaker 1: it again after that date. And in that bag, in
Speaker 1: that stuff were the recantations. Thankfully I had sit home
Speaker 1: and I sitting in someone else's name. I'm glad I
Speaker 1: did that. I can't imagine how defeated, you would have
Speaker 1: felt so. At least you have a record of the
Speaker 1: other two recantations while you await Carter's help. What did
Speaker 1: you have to wait for to get his help? So
Speaker 1: I don't know what he has going on. Legally, they
Speaker 1: promised him a parole date because he now had parole
Speaker 1: under the juvenile law, because right because he was a juvenile.
Speaker 1: That falls under two very important Scotis decisions Miller versus
Speaker 1: Alabama and Montgomery versus Louisiana. Between the two, it makes
Speaker 1: the mandatory life without parole sentence except in cases of
Speaker 1: permanent incarriage ability, it makes that sentence for a juvenile unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: and that decision was made retroactive. So he was resentenced
Speaker 1: and probably wants to wait until those proceedings are through
Speaker 1: before upsetting his own apple cart by helping you. Since
Speaker 1: it seems they were hell bent on ignoring the science
Speaker 1: pointing to your innocence and that has not changed ever
Speaker 1: since your conviction. I think this needs to go to
Speaker 1: a new trial, if not a new venue, because there
Speaker 1: is certainly new evidence and I don't see how you
Speaker 1: could ever be convicted it with that new evidence being presented.
Speaker 1: So I have Cooper statement where he recanted everything and
Speaker 1: said he liked I have grant where he said he
Speaker 1: liked I have Carter's leutter. You also have the subpoena
Speaker 1: phone records for the number passed off as Carter's phone
Speaker 1: in court, which established collusion between Jason Glenn Carter. However,
Speaker 1: that key piece of evidence turned out to be bogus.
Speaker 1: That subpoena is not in jas's official filings, so it's
Speaker 1: new evidence. So given the opportunity, you could subpoena the
Speaker 1: phone company again to submit that as new evidence, and
Speaker 1: you also did all the work that his attorney never did,
Speaker 1: thereby destroying Cooper's morass of lies. For me, what I'm
Speaker 1: hoping comes out of this is that somebody goes like, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's look into this. Not even take my word for it,
Speaker 1: let's look at the paperwork. The statements that were presented
Speaker 1: to the jury were false, and the prosecutor's office knew
Speaker 1: or should have known, that those statements were fault. Cooper
Speaker 1: changed and was allowed to change those testimonies with no
Speaker 1: consequences of perjury. And so he constantly keeps changing the
Speaker 1: stories over and over again until it got to a
Speaker 1: point where the prosecution could sell that story to a jury.
Speaker 1: And as we had said earlier, even with all of this,
Speaker 1: there was at least one person in that jury that
Speaker 1: said that they did not believe what the prosecution was
Speaker 1: selling them, which in any other state except Oregon at
Speaker 1: the time would have meant a hung jury. And this
Speaker 1: brings us to the very important development of Louisiana no
Speaker 1: longer accepting non unanimous jury verdicts. They did away with
Speaker 1: this Jim Crow era practice in two thousand and eighteen
Speaker 1: by ballot initiative, but when this new law was taken
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court, rather than making it retroactive, they
Speaker 1: led it up to the state of Louisiana to decide.
Speaker 1: To me, that's like telling the fox that's garten a
Speaker 1: inn house to do something about what you did that
Speaker 1: you know was wrong. So Louisiana stand, They're not gonna
Speaker 1: let the people go here. Within our organization, we know
Speaker 1: that it's over eight thousand people. It's over seventeen hundred
Speaker 1: or more here in St. Tammany Parish, with Jason on
Speaker 1: the top of the list be Linda Parker Brown. She
Speaker 1: and her organization have now filed a lawsuit against the
Speaker 1: State of Louisiana, and in this lawsuit they planned to
Speaker 1: challenge the State of Louisiana once again on the issue
Speaker 1: of these non unitedmous jury verdicts. They they was caught
Speaker 1: the highest court in the land, the United States Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: rule what they did here was unconstitutional, and I'm saying
Speaker 1: it was criminal. So I'm saying that if it was
Speaker 1: unconstitutional and the United States Supreme Court, along with the
Speaker 1: people voting sixty, let these people go, let them go free.
Speaker 1: If we got to organize some type of facilitation on
Speaker 1: how we want to release the people, that's fine, but
Speaker 1: it's not right for them to hold them hostage, kidnap
Speaker 1: because they got it wrong. And we're gonna have action
Speaker 1: steps linked in the bio for Belinda's organization and to
Speaker 1: help Jace. So I put together a petition for Ja's
Speaker 1: We're hoping to create awareness and we also want the
Speaker 1: new district Attorney who is in St. Tammany Parish. He
Speaker 1: has the power to reopen Jase's case. All the support
Speaker 1: and documents, all the inconsistent statements, Jason's phone records, Carter's
Speaker 1: phone records, Grant Gather's phone records, all of that information
Speaker 1: is available, it's for him to give Jay's a second
Speaker 1: opportunity for his case to be reviewed. Go to the
Speaker 1: bio now and we can all work together to right
Speaker 1: this wrong. And now we're going to turn to my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the show, closing arguments, where I thank
Speaker 1: both of you again. I mean you just you inspire
Speaker 1: me to want to work harder and smarter, and we're
Speaker 1: going to keep fighting for you and for everyone that
Speaker 1: we can possibly help that's been roughly convicted. So closing
Speaker 1: arguments works like this is he We're gonna start with you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna turn my microphone off, kick back in my
Speaker 1: chair with my headphones on, close my eyes, and just
Speaker 1: listen to anything else you want to share with our audience,
Speaker 1: and then hand the microphone off to Jason. He'll take
Speaker 1: us off into the sunset. April two thousand and seven,
Speaker 1: another human being, Jose Martinez Carpio lost his life. He
Speaker 1: had a family, he had people who loved and cared
Speaker 1: for him. He was an innocent man. He deserves justice,
Speaker 1: His family deserves justice. But if you have a situation
Speaker 1: where there's somebody else who had absolutely nothing to do
Speaker 1: with what unfortunately happened, to Jose Martinez, if you have
Speaker 1: that person servant time in prison, then you're not delivering
Speaker 1: any justice to the victim. You're not serving society any good,
Speaker 1: and in what may have been the state's good intention,
Speaker 1: the state ended up victimizing another person and his family.
Speaker 1: Jayson's conviction was a mistake and it's a mistake that
Speaker 1: needs to be corrected. It's been fifteen years overdue. And
Speaker 1: that's all that I like to say. We have social
Speaker 1: problems going on all over the world, all over the country,
Speaker 1: social problems affecting predominant lead black people a lot of
Speaker 1: times or not giving the sources and not giving the
Speaker 1: president Joe Bidel political leagus. But it's resting a lot
Speaker 1: of social problems. But with being left out a lot
Speaker 1: of times, is it criminal justice system and the way
Speaker 1: that you can handle black people on the need to
Speaker 1: date judges in the courts. They are not taking seriously
Speaker 1: the litigation done by indigent, They're not taking seriously the
Speaker 1: litigation done for who are are mostly poor. This has
Speaker 1: tanked this. You can't continue to run a system, operate
Speaker 1: and escape as a country. As the nation, you can't
Speaker 1: continue to operate with historically agreeable for people who are
Speaker 1: being adversity affective by the workings in the working bureaucratic
Speaker 1: inside of the system. Thank you for listening to Wrongful Conviction.
Speaker 1: I'd like to thank our production team Connor Hall, Jeff
Speaker 1: Clyburne and Kevin Wardis, with research by Lila Robinson. The
Speaker 1: music in this production was supplied by three time OSCAR
Speaker 1: nominated composer Jay Ralph. Be sure to follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter at wrong Conviction, as well as at
Speaker 1: Lava for Good. On all three platforms. You can also
Speaker 1: follow me on both TikTok and Instagram at It's Jason Flom.
Speaker 1: Wrongful Conviction is the production of Lava for Good Podcasts
Speaker 1: and association with Signal Company Number one